The ivy covered walls were quite the mystery. When I awoke, I knew there was something wrong before I had even opened my eyes, the air was wrong. The circular clearing was where I was, the walls of the maze surrounding me, and above the first archway, the only one I could see wrote in large, black letters: “You have one hour. Don’t touch the walls.” Understandably my heart starting racing as I stood up, and I was already starting to pant, my hands were shaking, I turned around. There was nothing the other way, just towering walls of stone. I had heard of the labyrinth before, the stone monolith that claimed someone every few months or so. But I felt the urge to start running, I hear stone grinding in the distance, and the grassy floors of the clearing almost seemed halcyon, but I ran. I ran, took a left, right, right, left, left. I kept going, the towering walls looming over me, casting a dark shadow that deepened the moss on the cold stone floors, everything was so smooth, and the ridged walls looked horrifying and the patterns within them seemed like mouths ready to swallow me up, when all they were really was circles with triangles subdividing them. Terror ran through me, it seemed as though the time was running as fast as I was. I kept running. But I suddenly ran out of air. Gasping for gulps of oxygen I stopped and heaved. I sat down. Right left left right right straight dead end. I kept going. I had to, I would be the first to escape the unescapable maze.  But alas, the sun drifted lazily across the sky, and soon my hour would be up. I walked now, the mouths were now clocks, ticking silently to my hour of death. My legs hurt and trembled, I wanted to lean against the walls and wait, but the sign had clearly set rules. I kept going, I stumbled through a clearing with a gazebo, another with three rock pillars arranged in a triangle, a smooth sphere at the circle but I was tired to the point that I could barely bat an eye. I continued onward, and as the stone turned to wood I paused, there was a door. I crept closer, but I could not touch it, was it under the rules as a wall? My hand nevertheless still outstretched and grasp the brass knob, I tensed, waiting to die or feel excruciating pain. Nothing. The knob clicked as it turned and the door swung inward. The room was dark. I took a tentative step on a floorboard and it creaked the groan of a dead person. I continued inward. A lantern sputtered to life, and I could see the interior. Moths drifted around the room lazily, a strange blue glow illuminated the room from somewhere above, the ceiling wasn’t visible, but there must be one for it to have been so dark. I saw where the lantern was, the center of the room, where a blue statue of a woman sat holding it. When I say a woman, I mean it was humanoid, as it was no human. The statue seemed to depict a monstrous entity, it was bald, and stood only 4 feet tall, it still had a feminine form to it, instead of legs, one single branch of stone, connecting the torso to the wood, where stone roots branched outwards along the floorboards, I could not see the statue’s face. I breathed in. The statue turned. I could feel every motion, the room seemed to have the air sucked out of it. The door closed behind me. The entity had a human face, and its eyes were glowing blue orbs with no pupils. Their face pulled in a tightlipped smile.

“Why have you come here?” The woman asked, her mouth not moving.

“I’m trapped here.” I responded.

“I as well, but this room is my safety.” The woman responded.

“What are you?” I asked.

“A being long forgotten to time, you may know me as the lady of the moths.” The woman responded, “But you may call me Reshiall.” The woman said. “I believe your hour is almost up, and I’m sorry to say, but this monolith shall consume you.” Reshiall continued. “I, unfortunately, can’t help you, nor be consumed.” I wanted to cry, this was my end.

“Is there anyway to leave?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“Perhaps, but this room is my world, and the size of this structure is immeasurable.”

“I’m not the first, people keep going missing, and I need it to stop.” I said, my voice raising.

“I’m sorry, I have no power here, my moths are my messengers, so perhaps I could have them relay a message to our captor’s next victim, but it would be no service to you specifically.” Reshiall looked down, the root twisted around so she may come closer to me. “But. My roots slowly grow, in centuries I may escape this room.” She blinked, the light at the top of the room glowed slightly brighter, and it came closer. As it descended from the ceiling, Reshiall coiled backwards towards the center again, putting the lantern out. A large, pulsating blue sac came down, tangled within blue roots the I could now see crawled up the walls of the cylindrical chamber, adorned with diagrams of moths. I felt a pain in my stomach. 

“I think I’m done.” I said, and with that I knew it was true. This was the end.

“What would you like the message to be?” Reshiall asked softly. I could tell too that she knew it was the end, the end for me. The pain was growing, it spread like a disease throughout my abdomen, and my head and my fingers. “My moths may spread around this cursed labyrinth, and they shall spread your message, whatever it shall be. I know you are not the first to fall, but the last human I met left before their demise.” I doubled over and fell to the wood, the pain in my stomach flaring.

“Tell any humans this: ‘My name is Poy Woodworth, I am just like you. I was trapped here once, and now I’m gone. Follow the moths and meet Reshiall. From there it is up to you. I believe you can escape, even if I did not.’” I could hardly see now, everything was spinning. 

“Very well,” Reshiall said. “You will not die in vain, the great pod shall retain your soul.” But it sounded so far away, everything was spinning, faster faster. Until everything was still.

Everything became nothing.